Cardiac rehabilitation in the elderly: Are the long-term results depending on the programme characteristics? Data from EU CaRe observational study

Background The EU-CaRE study is a prospective study comparing cardiac rehabilitation (CR) in 7 European countries including consecutive elderly patients (> 65 years) with coronary disease and/or cardiac surgery. Aim To evaluate the results on exercise capacity at one year follow up of different CR programmes. Methods We compared results of the French (Paris) CR program with Denmark (Copenhagen), Germany (Ludwigshafen), Italy (Parma), Netherlands (Zwolle, Nijmegen), Spain (Santiago), Switzerland (Bern). These programs differ by referral delay, number of sessions and the program duration. Results A total of 1633 patients were included, 219 for France. French patients were males (79%), aged by 73.2 ± 5.5 years, similarly to other countries. We included more CABG/valve replacement (67%) like Italy (61%) than non-surgical patients (33% in Paris vs. 50% in Netherlands, 62% in Denmark, 71% in Germany, 83% in Switzerland and 97% in Spain). In France, patients were referred early (15 days;11–23), enrolled in a short program (14 ± 3 sessions during 38 ± 15 days) compared to others. Results on gain of exercise capacity were obtained faster, without affecting the long-term (1 year) results ( Table 1 ). Conclusion Cardiac rehabilitation delay after index event, number of sessions and duration do not seem to impact long-term exercise capacity in coronary patients. We can presume that long-term results might be more due to the adherence/compliance and the educational measures during the CR program which have sustainable effects.